Skinner, Cornelia Otis (b. May 30, 1901, Chicago, Ill., U.S.—d. July 9, 1979, New York, N.Y.) U.S. actress and writer. She made her stage debut in Blood and Sand (1921) with her actor-father, Otis Skinner, who also collaborated on her first play, Captain Fury (1925). In the 1930s she wrote and staged monodramas, including The Wives of Henry VIII and The Loves of Charles II. She won acclaim in such plays as Candida (1939), Lady Windermere’s Fan (1946), and The Pleasure of His Com¬ pany (1958), which she wrote with Samuel Taylor. She also cowrote the best-seller Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (1942).
skip rope See jump rope
skipper Any of some 3,000 lepidopteran species (family Hesperiidae) named for their fast (up to 20 mph, or 30 kph), darting flight. The head and stout body of the adult skipper resemble a moth’s, but most skippers hold the first pair of wings vertically at rest, as butterflies do. Most skip¬ pers are diurnal and lack the wing-coupling structures typical of moths. Larvae feed mostly on legumes and grasses, usually living inside folded or rolled leaves that may be woven together. They pupate in a thin cocoon of silk or silk and leaves.
skittles English ninepin bowling game played with a wooden disk or ball. The pins are set in a diamond formation; the player who knocks down all the pins in the fewest throws wins. Skittles has been played for cen¬ turies in public houses and clubs.
Skopas See Scopas
Skopje Vskop-ye\ Serbian Skoplje Vskop-lye\ City (pop., 1994: 444,299), capital of the Republic of Macedonia. The old city is located on a terraced riverbank dominated by an ancient fortress, north of which is a Roman aqueduct. Skopje was an important city in the Roman prov¬ ince of Moesia Superior and was a capital of medieval Serbia. It was under Turkish rule from 1392 to 1913, then was incorporated into Serbia. After an earthquake destroyed 80% of the city in 1963, aid was sent by 78 countries and it was rebuilt. Today it is an industrial, commercial, edu¬ cational, and administrative centre.
skua Vsku-oN Species ( Catharacta skua, family Stercorariidae) of preda¬ tory seabird, called great skua in Britain (where the jaegers are also called skua). It is about 24 in. (60 cm) long. It resembles a heavily built gull, with brownish body and large white wing patches. It is the only bird that breeds in both the Arctic and the Antarctic. The agile, swift skuas force
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1764 I skull ► slag
other birds to disgorge food; they nest near penguins, petrels, murres, and terns, stealing their eggs and young. They also eat lemmings and carrion.
skull Skeletal framework of the head. With the exception of the lower jaw, its bones meet in immovable joints (sutures) to form a unit that encloses and protects the brain and sense organs and gives shape to the face. The cranium, the upper part enclosing the brain, comprising the frontal, parietal, occipital, temporal, sphenoid, and ethmoid bones, is globular and relatively large compared to the facial portion. Its base has an opening through which the spinal cord connects to the brain. The skull sits on the top vertebra (atlas), which permits back-and-forth motion. For side-to-side motion, the atlas turns on the next vertebra (axis). See also CRANIOSYNOSTOSIS, FONTANEL.
squamous
parietal bone, suture sphenoid bone temporal bone
lambdoid suture occipital bone external
auditory meatus mastoid process styloid process condyloid process
maxilla
mandible coronoid process
mental foramen
Front and side views of the human skull.
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skunk Any of several black-and-white New World species in the car¬ nivore family Mephitidae that eject an odoriferous liquid (as far as 12 ft [3.7 m]) when threatened. The liquid becomes a fine mist that causes tear¬ ing of the eyes and choking. Some scent-gland secretions are used in perfume. Species vary in colour pat¬ tern and size. Most are 18-37 in.
(46-93 cm) long, including the bushy tail, and weigh 2-13 lb (1-6 kg); the two species of spotted skunk (genus Spilogale ) are much smaller.
Skunks eat rodents, insects, eggs, birds, and plants. The striped, or common, skunk (. Mephitis mephitis ) is a nocturnal feeder that occurs in most of North America. With its scent glands removed, it is sometimes kept as a pet. The common skunk is a major carrier of rabies, which is fatal to skunks. The seven species of hog-nosed skunk (genus Conepatus) have a long, bald snout. The hooded skunk ( Mephitis macroura ) has a neck ruff.
skunk bear See wolverine
skunk cabbage Any of three species of plants that grow in temperate bogs and meadows, emitting unpleasant odours as they grow. The eastern North American skunk cabbage (, Symplocarpus foetidus , of the arum family) has large fleshy leaves, purple-brown spathes, and a skunklike odour. The western, or yellow, skunk cabbage ( Lysichiton americanum), also an arum, bears a large yellow spathe and is found from California to Alaska and east¬ ward to Montana. The third species, Veratrum californicum, is the poison¬ ous corn lily, or false hellebore, of the lily family, which grows from New Mexico and Baja California northward to Washington State.
skydiving Sport of jumping from an airplane at a moderate altitude (e.g., 6,000 ft [1,800 mj) and executing various body maneuvers before pulling the rip cord of a parachute. Competitive events include jumping for style, landing with accuracy, and performing in teams (e.g., making free-fall for¬ mations). The sport parachute is designed to be more maneuverable than the safety parachute. See photograph above.
Striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis).
E.R. DEGGINGER
Skylab First U.S. space station. Launched into Earth orbit in 1973 on a Saturn V rocket, it used as its main habitat the vehicle’s third stage, which had been outfitted as a workshop. Its apparatus included a powerful solar telescope and equipment for Earth- and materials-sciences research and for studies of the human body’s adaptation to weightlessness. Three suc¬ cessive astronaut crews conducted research aboard Skylab for a total of 171 days in 1973-74. Because its thermal shielding was damaged during launch, its first crew took up and installed an improvised sunshade to pre¬ vent the station from seriously overheating. Although plans called for Skylab to be reused, increased solar activity caused its orbit to degrade faster than expected. In 1979 it entered Earth’s atmosphere and broke up, with debris spreading over the southeastern Indian Ocean and a sparsely populated section of Western Australia.
skylark Species ( Alaudci arvensis) of Old World lark particularly noted for its rich, sustained song and for singing in the air. It is about 7 in. (18 cm) long, with brown upper parts streaked with black and buffish white underparts. It breeds across Europe and has been introduced into Austra¬ lia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and British Columbia.
skylight Roof opening covered with translucent or transparent glass or plastic designed to admit daylight. Skylights have found wide application admitting steady, even light in industrial, commercial, and residential buildings, especially those with a northern orientation. Installations range from purely functional daylighting to elaborate aesthetic forms. Flat- roofed buildings may have domed skylights; in others the skylight fol¬ lows the slope of the roof. Often the skylight, or a portion of it, functions as an operating window to admit air.
skyscraper Very tall multistoried building. The term originally applied to buildings of 10-20 stories, but now generally describes high-rises of more than 40-50 stories. James Bogardus (1800-1874) built the pioneer¬ ing Cast Iron Building, New York (1848), with a rigid iron frame provid¬ ing the main support for upper-floor and roof loads. The refinement of the Bessemer process for making steel (lighter and stronger than iron) made extremely tall buildings possible. Chicago’s Home Insurance Co. Build¬ ing (1884-85), by William Le Baron Jenney (1832-1907), was the first tall building to use a steel skeleton. Structurally, skyscrapers consist of a substructure supported by a deep foundation of piles or caissons beneath the ground, an aboveground superstructure of columns and girders, and a curtain wall hung on the structural framework. Tube structures, braced tubes, and trussed tubes were developed to give skyscrapers the ability to resist lateral wind and seismic forces. The bundled-tube system, devel¬ oped by Fazlur Khan (1928-1982), uses narrow steel tubes clustered together to form exceptionally rigid columns, and has been used to build some of the world’s tallest skyscrapers (e.g.. Sears Tower). Skyscraper design and decoration have passed through several stages: Louis Sullivan emphasized verticality; the firm of Me Kim, Mead, & White (see Charles F. McKim, Stanford White) stressed Neoclassicism. The International Style was ideally suited to skyscraper design. Originally a form of commercial architecture, skyscrapers have increasingly been used for residential pur¬ poses as well. See also setback.